To my little star,
I shall be with you…
…wherever you are
By Agelshaxe
Chapter One
The red sun appeared from behind the curved surface of the
planet, crimson rays of light were thrown into the infinite void of space in
billions of different directions, heading towards the unknown. Like every
morning, the light from the burning sun made the earth, the mountains, the ice
caps and even the seas turn to a shade of red…But this was no ordinary morning,
the red light was different somewhat…
It was red like blood…
On the surface of the planet, not a sound could be heard
except for the soft brushing of leaf against leaf, blade of grass against blade
of grass…It was as if the world had returned to the state it had been in before
the appearance of animal life, millions of years before. The animal life in
question had disappeared approximately seventeen hours before. Now, not one
sentient-being walked upon the surface of this world…
But, there was still life in orbit.
There was one life form in orbit.
The shuttle tumbled slowly, silently around the planet.
The lights had been deactivated and life-support was being maintained at a
strict-minimum…
Inside, the red light of the sun crept across the dead
consoles, across the soft carpeted floor, up the brown bulkheads. And finally,
it reached her eyes.
Her eyelids opened slowly and then blinked a few times in
quick succession. Her eyes were slightly blinded by the sudden appearance of
the sun.
Where am I?
She stood up and walked to the window. Outside, she saw
her world, shadows and clouds danced peacefully on the atmosphere. The lights
of the cities could even be seen from her position in a high-orbit.
But she knew that they were activated for no reason…There
was no one to profit from the warmth and the light of the electricity. No
one…
The remembrance of what had happened below made her heart
compress and her stomach twist. She remembered the screams, the pleas, the
battles, the fire, the blood....
And she had been the only one left to remember…
She suddenly felt dizzy, nauseous. Being unable to catch
herself she fell to the floor, her head struck the bulkhead with a metallic
thud. It hurt, but not as much as the memories.
And then, she wept. The tears falling to the carpeted
floor, disappearing after showing their sadness, their agony…Disappearing as
quickly as the lives below had disappeared…
With every tear she saw a face…And every one brought another…and
another…
Never would those faces be forgotten.
Always would she be haunted…
* * *
"Third age…Definitely." Commander Greg Eskina
said with a tone of finality, placing the large rock slab back on the table.
"But look at the variations in the syntax…This could
only have been written during the Age of Stars." Lieutenant Yasmin Reeves
folded her arms across her chest and watched her colleague as he carefully
studied the areas she had indicated on the slab.
Things had been pretty quiet aboard the Valiant
recently, no missions, no unsuspected excitements, nothing of consequence. Most
of the crew was busy doing nothing…However in the cryptology office the
atmosphere was as tense as ever.
Since they had begun working together on secret codes,
ciphers and ancient languages, Yasmin Reeves and Greg Eskina had had many
disagreements…It was all a part of cryptanalysis…Observations were made,
opinions were formed and, usually, after that, arguments began.
"Those aren't variations…Those are fissures caused
by age."
"Are you blind? That is obviously a carving made by
a ceremonial pen."
Eskina frowned and pondered a moment.
"Well?" Asked Reeves after a moment.
"Okay…Assuming for a minute that you're right…Why is
it that there isn't any date written on the document?"
Reeves was about to answer when the doors to the
cryptology office opened and lieutenant Stevenson stepped in, holding two mugs
of steaming coffee.
"Something told me you guys needed something to cool
yourselves down…" He said, moving towards them with a wide grin.
Reeves took the mug with a grateful look: "What gave
you that impression?"
Stevenson handed the mug to Eskina and said: "Well,
I guess I've gotten to know both of you pretty well over the past few months…Oh
and there's also the fact that you've been screaming so loud for the past half
hour that I had to take my nap with isolinear rods in my ears."
"Sorry…" Eskina said, hardly sounding sincere.
"But our dear Yasmin seems to be suffering from an eye infection or
something because this slab is clearly from the Third Age."
Stevenson glanced at the slab and grinned:
"Oh…Definitely."
"Thanks for your support." Reeves punched him
lightly in the stomach.
"Well, I'll leave you two guys alone for a while…Seems
you have a lot to talk about." He winked and quickly left the office
before they began again.
* * *
"Captain,"
Lt. Commander Sutter's voice intruded into the
daydreaming of Captain Kline. He jumped slightly and blinked a few times before
acknowledging: "Yes, commander?"
"We're picking up something…" The first
officer's thin eyebrows dropped into a frown. "Some sort of
transmission…It's been broken up by subspace interference, I'm attempting to
clean it up."
"Understood…" Kline waited, something which he
had been doing a lot these past few days.
He was as happy and relieved as the rest of the crew at
having being offered a few days of free time, however, the adventurer in him
still craved for something out of the ordinary, something that would send them
straight into action. Kline didn't consider himself as a man of action, he had
spent a long time sitting at a desk at Starfleet H.Q and most of his field
training had been drowned in the coffee drunk during long nights of paperwork.
However, not all of it was gone…Starfleet officers were adventurers; with
little or no exception…They roamed space to defy the unknown and stand up to
what may come.
In short, Kline was feeling a little bored.
"It appears to be a distress call, captain."
Once again, Sutter was the one to shake Kline back to real life.
"Why was it scrambled?" He asked, raising an
intrigued eyebrow.
She frowned, looking up at him: "It looks like the
transmission was sent three days ago…It was caught in some subspace
interference and was scrambled."
"I see…" Kline nodded. "Well…I suppose
that, if the call is three days old, there's not much we can do about it."
It felt bad, receiving a distress call from someone
probably long gone…
"Captain…The distress call originated on Amad…A planet, sir."
Bad had just gotten worse…
* * *
Out the viewscreen, planet Amad
glowed under the crimson light of its red sun. From here, everything seemed
peaceful and nothing seemed different than how the planet would usually appear.
But it was different, oh yes, it was…
The Valiant had just entered orbit of the planet
but the sensors had long-since determined what had happened on the surface of Amad: every living being larger than a mosquito had been
annihilated.
Kline watched the planet below in silence, his dark eyes
showing no emotion. The outrage, the disgust and the sorrow everyone on the
bridge was feeling felt like the atmospheric pressure quadrupling. They all
felt crushed by the enormity of what was before them. Millions upon millions of
living beings, wiped out…
Three days…
"I'm running a scan of the planet." Lieutenant
Johnson said, breaking the silence that had reigned for a few minutes on the
bridge.
Kline stood up slowly and walked to the Ops console where
Johnson was sitting, he peered over his shoulder at the information displayed:
"What do you have?"
"Nothing substantial…" Johnson frowned at the
blinking lights displayed on his console. "Although there is some residual
interference in the atmosphere…I can't say what the cause is."
Kline stared at the interference pattern in silence,
deeply frowning.
"Is something wrong, Captain?" Sutter stood and
took a step toward him.
"Do you recognize this pattern, commander?" He
asked, pointing to the readings on Johnson's screen.
Sutter studied the patterns, and her eyes grew wide:
"Oh no…"
"Uh…Did I miss something?" Johnson asked.
"That interference is of the same type as the one we
picked up on Gyltian."
Johnson jumped: "And…uh…what does that mean
exactly?"
"We have a big problem…" Kline said.